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Blue Bombers offensive lineman Glenn January says it's make-or-break time for the CFL and the players association to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. A strike vote and shortened season could be coming next.

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The CFL players union has grown a backbone, and it’s probably going to cost us part of the 2014 season.

Negotiators for the players and the league will try one last time to find some common ground toward a new agreement, Wednesday.

But the two sides are so far apart on the four core issues — money, player safety, career transitioning and pension — don’t be surprised if the talks fall apart and players vote to strike in the next few days, potentially leading to a shortened season.

“This is where it really is a make-or-break deal,” Bombers O-lineman Glenn January, on the phone from Houston, told the Winnipeg Sun, Tuesday.

The only way this thing can be salvaged, allowing players to report for training camp in two weeks, is if the CFL finally agrees to the key issue: the concept of revenue sharing.

That’s not likely to happen, as the league is content to play the delay game, hoping players begin trickling into their respective cities for camp.

The way the governors and commissioner Mark Cohon see it, the farther along things get, the harder it’ll be for players to shut it down.

I’m told players won’t even report without an agreement that sees a major shift in the way the league splits the growing pie.

As one player put it, “when you lay the facts out, guys get p--d.”

All January would say is the union is strong.

“I can tell you first-hand some of the guys you’d think would be scared about losing a couple of paycheques are the most gung-ho about standing together and fighting this issue,” he said.

The issue: a new broadcast deal will see each team earn some $2.7 million more per year, beginning this season.

The league is offering the players an additional $100,000 of it, total, in Year 1 of a new deal, bumping the salary camp from $4.4 to $4.5 million per team.

Increases in subsequent years would be either $100,000 or $50,000 — meaning teams would feast while tossing mere crumbs to the hired help.

The minimum salary would creep up from $45,000 to an equally disgraceful $46,000 this year.

That’s not an offer, it’s an insult.

How much are the players asking for?

They won’t publicly say, at least not yet. Reports peg their cap number as high $7 million per team.

What really matters is the concept of sharing revenue, the arrangement other leagues have and one the CFLers had prior to 2010, when they gave it up.

At the time they had 56%, and that’s probably their starting point in negotiations.

I’d guess they’d be more than happy to settle on a 50-50 split.

If they got it, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see the cap quickly reach that $7 million mark: take $126 million total revenue (average of $14 million per team, nine teams), with half, $63 million, going to player salaries.

But the CFL won’t even entertain the concept, claiming poverty on several fronts.

It’s a hollow claim.

The Blue Bombers recently announced a profit of $2.9 million, and that was for a year in which they won a paltry three games, had new stadium costs and paid off their top two executives to go away quietly.

What about Winnipeg’s stadium debt, you wonder?

The team budgeted to pay that down without the windfall from the new TV contract.

Edmonton announced profits of some $1.7 million on revenues of $18 million — after a four-win season.

Saskatchewan? Interestingly, the league’s other community owned team has been strangely silent about its financials.

Coincidence?

The players don’t think so.

By now we should know exactly how much green the Riders are rolling in. Don’t be surprised if it’s $10 million, or more.

I guess they’re still tabulating all the receipts for Grey Cup merchandise.

With the new TV deal not even the Argos and Ticats can claim to be paupers anymore.